Photo by Jack GouldWe were lying around in our sweats, mired in an almost incoherent melancholy tinged with an insouciant despair, when we realized something: Christmas is not about giving but about getting robbed, which we promptly proceeded to do, and we felt much better. For the record, anyone who buys airline tickets to visit her 83-year-old grandmother in Oklahoma for Christmas from Four Seasons Travel in Long Beach runs the risk of the very nice and ostentatiously Christian (big banners proclaim the glory of God all over her little office) travel agent Anna Mace making off with her $573 in cash. Since we were feeling the spirit of the season, we called the police and tried to get her arrested, but it didn't work. Although two separate police officers said they had been out there several times on various complaints—like tour buses paid for in cash that mysteriously never arrived—nothing could be done, at least not right then. And we do like our gratification instant. No SWAT team? No sobbing Anna Mace trying unsuccessfully to tear her hair because her hands were cuffed? Did you know the police aren't allowed to enter your business and arrest you without an arrest warrant? Shocking. But we do have one bit of advice: never do business with anyone who hugs you after closing a deal. Our little boy once had a nanny who hugged us right before stealing our ID and a box of checks and running up emergency-room bills in our name all over the country so she could get more and more Vicodin. Our credit is jacked. What would Jesus do?
Well, if Jesus were the well-loved performance artist Squelch—and who's to say he's not?—he would writhe around on a flag on the floor of the Santa Ana space Estudio Zumbido while eating apples without using his hands, all to some rather bitchen Motown. The mercifully short performance piece (Squelch has been known to run for more than an hour) took place at the annual Estudio Zumbido Christmas party on Dec. 18 and was woefully lacking in nudity. (At their last party, Squelch reportedly got so drunk that his Christmas package was hanging out of his little thong, and when art-personage-about-town Randy Pesqueira went to fix it for him, Squelch started peeing down his own leg! Ah, the Spirit of Estudio Zumbido Past.) Happily, Squelch did remove his shirt to showcase a splendid gut where hard little abs used to be. We just adore Squelch. Of course, Estudio Zumbido guy Seth Wilder and the troupe of disadvantaged breakdancers he manages are looking as fit as ever, as is Seth's art-waif roommate with the expensive highlights. Nice kid. Also, former Estudio guy Chuck, currently running around the wilds of LA, brought us chartreuse panties (new ones!), for which we thank him. Thanks, Chuck!
Now that all that boring thanking (not to mention reporting) is out of the way, we'd like to extend to you our Christmas wishes. With our hero, the immortal and beautifully coifed Dolly Parton, we wish you joy and happiness, but above all this: we wish you love. Also, we wish that you don't get caught in hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw sewage when the water systems all break down on New Year's Day and that you aren't killed in a traffic accident when all the stoplights simultaneously go bad, like HAL 9000 in 2001. Aside from those things, and a possible nuclear winter when the Russians' nuke silos self-immolate, we don't expect any of the things those Y2K ghoulies have warned us will happen. But, really, do go buy some water. We'll be down in San Felipe, watching the sun rise over the Gulf of California. We'll be safe there. Of course, our personal friend Dave Alvin, who'll be headlining at Seattle's Space Needle at midnight, may fall victim to some end-of-the-world fundamentalist nut, like the one who was just arrested at the Canadian border with explosives possibly meant for . . . Seattle's Space Needle. But we predict he won't. Anybody who wants to come on down to San Felipe is welcome, and campsites are cheap. (El Dorado Ranch, 800-404-2599).
We'd like to leave you with a Christmas reminder: we believe the children are our future. Teach them well; let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be. And then send us some gifts. You know, for the kids. For the children. For the kids.
Send gifts care of OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627.
